New Talk Art special episode!!!! We meet ICONIC artist Julie Mehretu, presented by BMW. #AD What does Julie Mehretu think about when creating BMW Art Car 20? Find out on this week’s @TalkArt episode!@RussellTovey and @RobertDiament interview @JulieMehretu during the process for planning and creating #BMWArtCar20. To design #artcar20, Mehretu translates her signature multi-layered motifs onto the contours of the #BMWMHybridV8. Obscured photographs, dotted grids, neon-coloured spray paint and her iconic gestural markings create abstract visual forms across the body of the car. Mehretu’s collaboration with BMW goes beyond the Art Car. Julie Mehretu and Mehret Mandefro (@drmehret), Emmy-nominated producer, writer and co-founder of the Realness Institute which aims to strengthen the media ecosystem across Africa, will host a series of gatherings across Africa in 2025 to create space for artists to meet, exchange, and collaborate in translocal ways. Follow @JulieMehretu and @BMWGroupCulture to stay in the loop for more sneak peeks of the next addition to this legendary car collection.Ideas of time, space and place are enmeshed in the work of Julie Mehretu. Drawing is fundamental to her practice, whether in works on paper, painting or printmaking. The artist’s dextrous mark-making comes together in a characteristic swirl, an act of assertion in response to social and political change. ‘As I continue drawing,’ she says, ‘I find myself more and more interested in the idea that drawing can be an activist gesture. That drawing – as an informed, intuitive process, a process that is representative of individual agency and culture, a very personal process – offers something radical.’The countdown for the unveiling of the 20th BMW Art Car is underway. On 21st May, the BMW M Hybrid V8, designed by artist Julie Mehretu and set to compete at the 24 Hours of Le Mans on 15th/16th June, will be presented at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France. The artist is already providing glimpses into her work. Additionally, it is now confirmed that the Art Car will carry the starting number 20 and will be driven by Sheldon van der Linde (RSA), Robin Frijns (NED), and René Rast (GER). The #20 BMW M Hybrid V8 will be the first Art Car since the 2017 season, where the BMW M6 GTLM designed by John Baldessari raced at the 24 Hours of Daytona (USA), followed by the virtual BMW M6 GT3 Art Car by Cao Fei at the FIA GT World Cup in Macau (CHN). In the past, the most famous BMW Art Cars have participated in Le Mans: in 1975, Alexander Calder’s BMW 3.0 CSL, in 1976, Frank Stella’s BMW 3.0 CSL, in 1977, Roy Lichtenstein’s BMW 320i Turbo, in 1979, Andy Warhol’s BMW M1, in 1999, Jenny Holzer’s BMW V12 LMR, and in 2010, Jeff Koons’ BMW M3 GT2. This illustrious collection is now enriched by Julie Mehretu’s BMW M Hybrid V8.For the design of the 20th BMW Art Car, Mehretu uses the colour and form vocabulary of an existing large-format painting from a more recent series of works: obscured photographs, dotted grids, neon-coloured spray paint and Mehretu’s iconic gestural markings give her design an abstract visual form. She transfers the resulting image motif as a high-resolution photograph onto the vehicle’s contours using a 3D mapping technique. This creates the unique artistic foiling with which the BMW M Hybrid V8 will compete in the Le Mans race. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We meet all-round LEGEND, Dan Levy, the Emmy award winning producer, writer, director, actor and art collector!! We discuss his love of art, living with art and collecting, his collaborations with Jonathan Anderson/Loewe, and his brand new art-inspired movie Good Grief out now on Netflix in which an artist (Dan) grieves the loss of his famous writer husband (Luke Evans) takes his two best friends on a trip to Paris, where they unpack messy secrets and hard truths. We explore what it was like to play the role of a painter but also to collaborate with a real world artist Kris Knight @KrisKnight who was commissioned by Dan to make the paintings at the end of the film! Plus the time he bought a Schitt’s Creek related watercolour painting on Instagram made by a super fan, the artist Anna Brindley!!! We discuss the artwork of Patrick Carroll @PatCar, and share the love for our mutual friend @EmmaLouiseCorrin (who portrays a determined performance artist in Good Grief!) Follow @InstaDanJLevyWatch Good Grief: https://www.netflix.com/gb/title/81462549 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

We meet artist Alexandria Tarver to discuss his current solo exhibition at Deli Gallery, New York. Tarver recontextualizes the traditional floral motif into a space between memory, idealization, and presence. Her process begins on a ritualistic evening walk around New York City. For Tarver, the night is a dynamic time oscillating between rest, dreams, and frenzy, often unleashing subconscious desires restrained during the day. It's a period when trouble happens, stars become visible, and the city, never at rest, mirrors the cycle akin to death. The variability of the city's nighttime sky, influenced by observation points, weather, and proximity to building lights, becomes a rich palette of colors, each night unique. On these walks the artist identifies potential subjects, often floral clusters, in an action akin to foraging. Tarver photographs the subject and then creates a preliminary composition in pencil on paper. The subject is finally rendered in oil on panel, employing techniques from various historical movements including post-impressionism, New England mid-century representationalism, and gestural abstraction. The primary layer, accompanied by lapis and cerulean blue ground, captures the electric color of twilight. The timeline varies, with some paintings taking weeks or even months. The vibrant blue of twilight oscillates against the flesh-tones of the central flower form—this blue sometimes deepening, sometimes shifting into an evening haze, sometimes sinking into purple-black depth, a depth halted by the ever-present electric glow of the skyline. Tarver finds profound meaning in the repetition and variations on a theme. As she explores the possibilities of painting, she grapples with the act of painting and its evolution over time and practice. The disciplined dedication to a subject or landscape, evident in artists like Maureen Gallace, Vija Celmins, and Jim Dine, is mirrored in Tarver's formal repetition, which becomes a grounding force that reflects the rhythm of day-to-day existence. In the paintings, flowers and markings are situated as acting figures within the particular, ever-variable, and intensely observed color field of the night sky as viewed from the concrete grounds of the city. Much like Ellsworth Kelly's plant drawings served as a device for him, the plant in Tarver's works acts as a stand-in, offering a guiding framework for her hand and a pathway to reflect on the long nights she has experienced. During a vulnerable period around 2013 and 2014, marked by the sickness and imminent mortality of Tarver's father, the practice of looking at flowers and creating paintings became a place of solace. This loyalty endures, providing a grounding force and a way to navigate through fear, pain, and sorrow. Alexandria Tarver (b. 1989) received a BFA from New York University in 2011. Recently her work has been included in group exhibitions at GRIMM Gallery, London (2023), Marinaro Gallery, NY (2023), Public Gallery, London (2022), UncleBrother, NY (2021), Arsenal Gallery, NY (2019), Et. Al. etc., San Francisco (2017), Danziger Gallery, NY (2016). Tarver also organized group shows Sentimental at Fitness Center for the Arts & Tactics in Brooklyn (2013) and #1 at The Hose in Brooklyn (2013). Tarver had her first solo exhibition with Deli Gallery in 2015. She lives and works in New York City.Follow @AlexandriaTarver on Instagram and @DeliGallery.Visit: https://deligallery.com/Alexandria-Tarver-New-Paintings-2024 Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

SEASON 20 BEGINS!!! We meet ICON of film and Hollywood costumes SANDY POWELL OBE!!!! We discuss her love of art, collaborating with legendary queer artists/creative minds Derek Jarman and Lindsay Kemp, a 25 year collaboration with choreographer Lea Anderson, and how art informs her costume design. Sandy is a multi award-winning Costume Designer who has won three Academy Awards, three BAFTA Awards for Best Costume Design, plus the recent honour of BAFTA Fellowship 2023, and a Costume Designers Guild Award.Londoner, Sandy, studied at St Martins School of Art and the Central School of Art and Design where she specialised in theatre design. She started her professional career in fringe with the National Theatre working on numerous productions including Orders of Obedience and Rococo. She went on to design sets and costumes for productions of Lumiere and Son, Bright Side and Culture Vulture. As a student and one of the leading lights of the international theatre scene she most admired was Lindsay Kemp, the gifted director, designer and performer. On impulse she spoke to him on the phone and said how much she wanted to work with him. After seeing samples of her work he asked her to join him in Milan as costume designer for his theatre company. During her 3 year spell with him she worked on Nijinsky which was a study of the start and madness of the great Russian dancer. She also designed the costumes for The Big Parade, a tragic- comic homage to the silent screen, and the stage and screen versions of A Midsummer Nights Dream. In 1985 she rapidly established herself in the world of video working on many pop promos with director Derek Jarman and with him on his film Caravaggio, and Zenith's For Queen and Country.Born in 1960, she was raised in south London, where she was taught to sew by her mother on a Singer sewing machine, and began experimenting with cutting and adapting patterns at a young age. Educated at Sydenham High School, she went on to complete an Art Foundation at Saint Martins in 1978, and in 1979 she began a BA in Theatre Design at Central School of Art and Design (now Central Saint Martins.)In 1981 she withdrew from her degree to assist a costume designer who worked for a fringe theatre company called Rational Theatre, and also began a long collaboration with Lindsay Kemp designing for him in Italy and Spain.In 1984 when, after a spell as a costume designer on music videos, she moved into the film industry. Her break came when the film director and stage designer Derek Jarman appointed her costume designer on his film, Caravaggio (1986), starring Tilda Swinton and Sean Bean. To date, Powell has worked as Costume Designer on over 50 films, including Orlando (1992);The Crying Game (1992); Interview with the Vampire (1994); Michael Collins (1996); The Wings of The Dove (1997); Hilary and Jackie (1998); The End of the Affair (1999); Gangs of New York (2002); Far From Heaven (2002); Sylvia (2003); The Aviator (2005); The Departed (2006); Shutter Island (2010) Hugo (2011) The Wolf of Wall Street (2013); Cinderella (2015); Carol (2015); Mary Poppins Returns (2018); and Living (2022). She has earned 76 award nominations and won 27 awards in her career, including Academy Awards for Shakespeare in Love (1998) and The Aviator (2004), a BAFTA Award for Velvet Goldmine (1998), and both an Academy Award and a BAFTA Award for The Young Victoria (2010).Follow @TheSandyPowell on Instagram.Thanks for listening!!! This season is shaping up to be one of the most fascinating so far!!! Thanks for listening. Follow us @TalkArt for images of works we discuss in today's episode. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.